VI - KLAGOPSALMER

"VI: Klagopsalmer" is the 6th full-length studio album by Swedish black metal act Shining. The album was released in june 2009 by Osmose Productions. The band's last album, the critically acclaimed "V - Halmstad (2007)", saw the culmination of Shining's slow but steady progress from raw suicide black metal towards extreme metal with a progressive edge. "VI: Klagopsalmer" more or less follows in the footprints of "V - Halmstad" but ultimately with a less progressive edge.

Niklas "Kvarforth" Olsson's lyrical universe still evolves around suicide, self- mutilation, depression and hatred and like on the last album all lyrics are in the Swedish language (except the on the Seigmen cover track "Ohm (Sommar med Siv)", where the lyrics are performed in the Norwegian language). Song-titles like "Fullst'ndigt J'vla D'd Inuti" ("Completely Fucking Dead Inside") and "Krossade Dr'mmar och Brutna L'ften" ("Broken Dreams og Broken Promises") are a testament to that misantrophic and bleak world view. The music mostly consists of heavy mid-paced riffing, occasional haunting lead melody lines, an acoustic break here and there and Niklas "Kvarforth" Olsson's aggressive raspy/ raw vocals. He also sings clean vocal sections on the album. Most notably on "Ohm (Sommar med Siv)". The atmosphere on the album is generally thick with hatred and reeks depression and resignation. There's no hope, just the prospect of eternal darkness and suffering. Yet the soaring melodic guitar solos on the album do provide just a slight bit of light IMO, but that's my personal interpretation.

The songwriting on the album is pretty much top notch, but I do feel that sections of the 16:46 minute long closing track "Total Utfrysning" are a bit too longdrawn to my ears and compositionally the track is rather fragmented. The 5th track on the album "Krossade Dr'mmar och Brutna L'ften" is not that interesting either as it primarily consists of an acoustic guitar playing one riff over and over again. Yes it's dark and depressive, but it's too long and repetitive. So the last 20 minutes of the 50:32 don't quite meassure up to the first 30 minutes of high quality material but we're still talking Shining and even their weaker material is usually rather strong.

The production is powerful and all instruments are well defined in the mix. Actually the sound is pretty similar to the sound on "V - Halmstad".

"VI: Klagopsalmer" is not exactly the revelation that I think "V - Halmstad" was. It's a bit more simple and direct and the songs are generally just sligthly less interesting than the material on "V - Halmstad" is. When that is said "VI: Klagopsalmer" is still a very good and powerful extreme metal album that I greatly enjoy. A 3.5 - 4 star rating is warranted.